The villages Vejstrup and Øster Åby are separated by just a few hundred metres and in between the stream Vejstrup Å runs under the Svendborg-Nyborg highway. Directly west of the road is Vejstrup Vandmølle (Vejstrup Watermill). It is one of the protected watermills of South Fyn fully equipped with a mill pond, a flume (which is the wooden chute that leads the water to the water wheel) and two tall “overshot wheels”, i.e. water wheels where the flume lifts the water above the wheel, thus utilising both the force of the flow of the water and its weight to turn the wheel.
It was Vejstrupgård that built the current watermill in 1838, but watermills have existed here since the 1500s. From 1850 to 1922 the mill operation also had a windmill, however, it is broken down now. The watermill continued in operation until 1975. After this point in time, the water wheels powered a generator producing electricity.
For a number of years, Vejstrup Vandmølle has served as a museum mill. It is privately owned and has, as one of a few watermills on Fyn, not yet had its water supply cut by the re-routing of streams or removal of “barriers” to the watercourses to improve the mobility of fish and small animals.
